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Extending Android Framework
Citation preview
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Table of Contents
1. Background 2
2. Existing Support 2
a. Android Open Accessory Development Kit
b. USB host and Accessory Support
3. Overview 2
4. Device support in Linux 3
5. Android Approach 4
6. Example 1: Joystick 5
a. Step 1: Kernel Drivers
b. Step 2: Interfaces to device
c. Step 3: Permissions
d. Step 4: Services
e. Step 5: Platform Library
f. Step 6: End Application
g. Overall
7. Summary 14
8. References 14
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Background Android is expected to proliferate across a wide variety of devices in a relatively short time. Not just
smart phones and tablets but devices like laptops, gaming consoles, embedded devices…It has
undergone 8 releases in 2 years, more than 310 android devices of all shapes and sizes and 100 million
activated android devices. Even with so much growth, when compared to general computing devices,
they support a lot more hardware than android. Android was built with Mobile Internet Devices (MID) in
mind, but newer use cases demand support for other devices. Hence there is a growing need for android
to support other hardware devices of different shapes and sizes.
Existing Support
Android Open Accessory Development Kit: The Android 3.1 platform (also backported to Android 2.3.4) introduces Android Open Accessory support,
which allows external USB hardware (an Android USB accessory) to interact with an Android-powered device
in a special "accessory" mode. When an Android-powered powered device is in accessory mode, the
connected accessory acts as the USB host (powers the bus and enumerates devices) and the Android-
powered device acts as the USB device. Android USB accessories are specifically designed to attach to
Android-powered devices and adhere to a simple protocol (Android accessory protocol) that allows them to
detect Android-powered devices that support accessory mode. Accessories must also provide 500mA at 5V
for charging power. Many previously released Android-powered devices are only capable of acting as a USB
device and cannot initiate connections with external USB devices. Android Open Accessory support
overcomes this limitation and allows you to build accessories that can interact with an assortment of
Android-powered devices by allowing the accessory to initiate the connection.
USB Host and Accessory Support: USB accessory mode allows users to connect USB host hardware specifically designed for Android-powered
devices. The accessories must adhere to the Android accessory protocol outlined in theAndroid Accessory
Development Kit documentation. This allows Android-powered devices that cannot act as a USB host to still
interact with USB hardware. When an Android-powered device is in USB accessory mode, the attached
Android USB accessory acts as the host, provides power to the USB bus, and enumerates connected devices.
Android 3.1 (API level 12) supports USB accessory mode and the feature is also backported to Android 2.3.4
(API level 10) to enable support for a broader range of devices.
Overview We first describe a generic device support for a standard linux stack followed by a layered approach for
android. Then we provide two examples, integrating
a joystick
In the end we provide a device makers perspective and provide market compatibility.
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Device support in Linux
The above diagram represents a standard linux stack. At the bottom, we have the hardware with the
kernel directly interacting with it. Kernel provides access to these hardware through Device Nodes. The
access rights and privileges to these device nodes are maintained by udev rules. These are just rules
present in “/etc/udev/rules.d/” which maintains the vendor id, product id, access modes and privileges
for individual device nodes. The user applications utilizes the APIs provides by these devices, which
intern call the privileged daemon to access the device nodes.
Thus, to support a device in linux, one should first provide a device driver for the kernel to communicate
with the hardware. Then provide necessary APIs and access rights to be used by various applications.
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Android Approach
The above diagram represents a standard android stack. Although android uses, the modified linux
kernel, the architecture of the system itself is different from linux system as android’s architecture was
specifically designed for MID devices.
Like linux, the kernel communicates directly with the devices, and represents them as device nodes.
Instead of udev, android uses ueventd which is much more simplified version of udev. Above this, the
stack is totally different from the linux stack explained above. Android uses Java for applications with its
own JVM called Dalvik Virtual Machine. The standard system level components and libraries are written
in C/C++. These are made accessible for java code through the JNI interface. Each device extends it
support to top level applications using the android Services. To maintain uniformity and standardize the
set of APIs provided by android, changing of an API is not permitted in android unlike linux. Hence new
devices mean new APIs. To preserve compatibility, the support should be provided through Platform
Libraries which is an android mechanism to ensure unnecessary modifications to the android APIs.
Therefore, to provide a support for new device in the android framework, one must, like linux, provide
necessary drivers for the kernel to communicate with the device along with necessary permissions. Then
provide an android service utilizing the JNI interface for the apps to use the device’s feature. And all of
these packaged in a platform library for compatibility.
Example 1: Supporting a USB Joystick Here we provide steps to support Logitech’s Precision Gamepad, a 10 key usb joystick, for android 2.2
(froyo). We chose this device because of its simplicity, and also for the author’s interest in gaming. We
use android-x86 for development as we wanted to present our demo on a laptop to showcase the
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support of android on other devices. We provide individual steps along the diagram of the android stack
indicating which layer of the stack is modified at each step.
Step 1: Kernel Drivers & Device node
For the android system to be able to communicate with the device, it need to understand the device’s
language. Hence we first have to provide appropriate drivers for the kernel. Since our joystick is based
on usb, the driver defaults to HID raw driver already present in the kernel. This will be included in most
of the kernels, if not, can be added to the kernel config file and compiled again. So all we have to do is
boot up android, connect the joystick and check if the kernel is able to provide a device node for our
joystick, which means that the kernel can successfully communicate with the device.
The above diagram shows that we were able to see our joystick as a device node in the system as
/dev/input/event15
Step 2: Interface to the device node
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Now that our joystick is shown up as a device node, we have to provide an interface to it. We provide it
with native code (C++) and then provide a JNI wrapper around it.
We first open the device in read only mode, then read the “input_event” structure to get single key
code per event
Since android application are developed in Java, we have to provide a JNI wrapper around our native
code.
Next we have to generate a library of this. Our service will utilize this library to access our joystick.
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Step 3: Permissions
Now that we have provided the interface, we have to provide appropriate services to the joystick.
Hence, we have to make necessary changes in the android source code. We have changed the group
ownership of the /dev/input/* from root to system
There is a file called ueventd.rc, where these modification can be made
Step 4: Services
Next step is to provide a service that uses our library to provide the device’s feature to the apps. We
also have to sign the service to have the privilege access
We also define permission in the AndroidManifestfile.xml. the apps must use this permission to access
the service.
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These IPC services exposes the API to the applicatoins
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Step 5: Platform Library
Platform Library is the android’s mechanism to maintain compatibility across different devices and
versions. Hence we have to declare our library to the framework
The library is a raw .jar file, not and .apk. The users can use this library for their applications
Step 6: End Application
Finally we provide a sample application that uses our services to access the device and perform some
action.
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First our application has to bind to the service.
Next the app uses our service to register the callback, the function that will be called when joystick
actions are performed.
Since, our callback in not run in the ui thread and because the android framework in not thread safe, we
have to use the “runOnUiThread()” method.
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The application programmer has to use our library to access our services. The below figure shows this.
Overall: Here is a sequence diagram, that shows the scenario of the app, service, and the device
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Summary Here we have provided the steps to integrate a joystick with the android framework. We have kept the
examples simple on purpose. We have not implemented the
Power Management
Deeper system integration
References http://developer.android.com/index.html
http://www.android-x86.org/